So much is in bloom right now: lilies and hydrangea and daisies. When conditions are right – abundant sun and enough rain – they dazzle.

In this and every season, we ask ourselves at the UU Urban Ministry how we can live into our potential for partnership and for social justice. And we seek to be good soil for others to live into theirs.

We strive to put our extraordinary campus in Roxbury to its fullest use serving this community.

• We partner with the Makanda Project jazz band to provide lively and free summer concerts on our green.

• We welcome The City School for their summer teen leadership classes, and some days every classroom and nook and cranny is full of life with young people talking, planning, learning.

• We partner with Roxbury Community College as they undergo renovations, and welcomed their Summer Intensive Arts summer camp into our historic Meetinghouse. It is one of the programs children in our summer campership program attend (another is an arts camp in Brookline). The program culminates with a performance here in August.

And we work to ensure our UUUM core programs provide the resources for individuals to blossom, too.

•  In September, after two years of research, planning and development, we launch our job readiness program for trauma survivors. This is an extension of the longtime work we have done serving domestic violence survivors in our Renewal House shelter. Classes will be held on our Roxbury campus for about 30 survivors at a time.

• We will launch a re-envisioned youth program that focuses on life skills and social/emotional well-being. We have provided safe and nurturing space to high school students for decades. After a lengthy strategic planning process, we are gearing up for a reinvigorated program that offers young people the tools, support and opportunity to live into their potential, too.

We rely on our friends, volunteers, and donors to make this possible – to enrich this soil so that all those who enter reach, stretch, grow, and dazzle.

Thank you for being part of our work and UUUM community.

Summer blessings,

Mary Margaret